Angry Witches and Wizards Confront Governor Akpabio
November 17, 2008 | Taju Tijani
Unpleasant, distasteful, disgraceful, annoying and haunting. These are the ready adjectival qualifiers for Channel 4’s Dispatches programme titled “Saving Africa’s Witch Children”, shown on Wednesday 12 November, 2008. The producers were sadistically deadpan in their engagement with the viewers’ repulsive emotion. It is a case of going for the jugular of our humanity to see how loud we could scream with our conscience. My conscience screamed along with other UK based Nigerians whose evening was shattered when the camera began to document another evil variant of our collective bastardy.
A paralysing Pandora box of Nigeria’s unbroken epic of the tale of the unexpected was thrown rudely across our living rooms. It was a grand spoiler. The menu was more of appetite suppressant than the rich delicacy of Akwa Ibom edikaikong. An exuberant, energetic, white foreigner who played the role of a messiah-redeemer was seen combing the creeks of Akwa Ibom State buying our children like chattel of slavery re-enactment. Gary Foxcroft, 29, of the charity body, Stepping Stones Nigeria, is the new reincarnated Bob Geldof. Foxcroft is championing a cause to emancipate Nigerian witch children from the hands of deadly, psychotic, machete-wielding witch and wizard hunters in the villages and towns of Akwa Ibom State.
Among Africa’s shackling demons, witchcraft is the most fearsome. It is in our existence, folklore and our everyday conversation. Every African has one closet witch in his family, I must say, until the day of confession-to- deliverance. Families have been ruined and marriages destroyed when witchcraft grenades are lobbed as weapons of warfare in our society. I am sure we all know one man, woman, relation, neighbour or friend whose life has been emptied of meaning either as a victim of a sustained witchcraft attacks or a card carrying coven attendee....
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